This invention concerns monoclonal antibodies recognizing human lung cells. The monoclonal antibodies recognize antigenic markers on normal as well as cancerous lung cells. Capable of distinguishing normal lung versus cancerous lung tissues, these mAbs are useful in diagnosis of lung cancer. Tests with these mAbs also enable diagnostic differentiation between benign tumors versus cancerous tumors of the lung.
In 1975 Kohler and Milstein introduced a procedure for the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) using hybrid cells (hybridomas) which allows the production of almost unlimited quantities of antibodies of precise and reproducible specificity. Conventional antisera, produced by immunizing animals with tumor cells or other antigens, contain a myriad of different antibodies differing in their specificity and properties, whereas hybridomas produce a single antibody with uniform characteristics. The Kohler-Milstein procedure entails the fusion of spleen cells from an immunized animal with an immortal myeloma cell line. From the fused cells (hybridomas), clones are selected that produce antibody of the desired specificity. Each clone continues to produce only that one antibody. As hybridoma cells can be cultured indefinitely (or stored frozen in liquid nitrogen), a constant supply of antibody is assured.
Antibodies are proteins that have the ability to combine with and recognize other molecules, known as antigens. Monoclonal antibodies are no different from other antibodies except that they are very uniform in their properties and recognize only one antigen or a portion of an antigen known as a determinant.
In the case of cells, the determinant recognized is an antigen on or in the cell which reacts with the antibody. It is through these cell antigens that a particular antibody recognizes, i.e. reacts with, a particular kind of cell. Thus the cell antigens are markers by which the cell is identified.
These antigenic markers may be used to observe the normal process of cell differentiation and to locate abnormalities within a given cell system. The process of differentiation is accompanied by changes in the cell surface antigenic phenotype, and antigens that distinguish cells belonging to distinct differentiation lineages or distinguish cells at different phases in the same differentiation lineage may be observed if the correct antibody is available. Initial recognition of differentiation antigens came about through analysis of surface antigens of T-cell leukemias of the mouse and the description of the TL, Thy-1, and Lyt series of antigens. (Old, Lloyd J., Cancer Research, 41, 361-375, February 1981) The analysis of these T-cell differentiation antigens was greatly simplified by the availability of normal T cells and B cells of mouse and man and is relatively advanced. (See Pat. Nos. 4,361,549-550; 4,364,932-37 and 4,363,799 concerning mAb to Human T-cell antigens). Little is known about differentiation antigens displayed on normal and neoplastic cells belonging to other lineages.
This is due to the difficulty of obtaining a ready source of the appropriate normal cell type as well as the vagaries of the art of monoclonal antibodies. The preparation of hybrid cell lines can be successful or not depending on such experimental factors as nature of the innoculant, cell growth conditions, hybridization conditions etc. Thus it is not always possible to predict successful hybridoma preparation of one cell line although success may have been achieved with another cell line.
Progress in defining surface antigens on melanocytes was made possible by the recently discovered technique of culturing melanocytes from normal skin (Eisinger, et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad, Sci. USA, 79 2018 (March 1982). This method provides a renewable source of proliferating cells for the analysis of melanocyte differentiation antigens. Likewise, a large number of cell lines derived from melanomas have now been established and these have facilitated the analysis of melanoma surface antigens. The advent of mAb has greatly accelerated knowledge about the surface antigens of malignant melanoma. Cell markers on both melanomas and melanocytes have been identified. A panel of typing monoclonal antibodies has been selected which recognizes differentiation antigen characteristics at each stage of development in both melanocytes and melanomas. These differentiation antigens may be used to classify melanocytes and melanomas and to group them into characteristic sub-sets. Dippold et al. Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 77, 6114 (1980) and Houghton, et al. J. Exp. Med. 156, 1755 (1982). Immunoassay of melanocytes and melanoma cells within sub-sets in thus made possible.